The Littlest Mermaid
by hadassahstar
Summary: Ariel is the youngest daughter of King Triton and Queen Aspera. After her mother's selfless death, she is haunted by this memory until her fifteenth birthday, even if she's already forgotten almost everything about Aspera. When she's finally allowed back up to the surface... Who knows what will happen?
1. Chapter 1

The last rays of light disappeared from the indigo waters of the Sea Kingdom, and the crystals which illuminated the palace in the night created menacing shadows on the paintings of the deceased.

Ariel swam past each one, her emerald tail creating powerful bursts of water which propelled her faster than any other fish. Her glorious, auburn hair styled into an elegant braid cascaded over one creamy shoulder, and her inquisitive blue eyes skimmed quickly over each painting until she stopped at the very end of the hall.

Inlaid in an exquisite white quartz frame was a painting of a woman with kind, amethyst eyes, light caramel skin and sleek mocha hair. Ariel's eyes filled with tears as she remembered her mother, playing with her and her sisters in the warm, turquoise lagoon at the top of the reef, wrapping dried anemone in seaweed for the family to eat while setting the food on flat rocks, her hair like a sheet of brown silk screening her face singing a half-forgotten lullaby.

It was then that Ariel realized she had forgotten the sound of her mother's voice.

She bent slightly and clapped her hands together, with her fingertips touching her forehead, as a sign of reverence to her dead mother as she exited the room.

"Ariel?"

She gasped and turned to see her sister Attina, standing by the door, the well-lit foyer rendering her nothing but a silhouette.

"I'm... I was just..."

"Ariel, what are you doing down here? You know father doesn't approve. Especially not before your fifteenth birthday, you mustn't be late to the celebrations later tonight. Come, get some rest."

Attina had obviously inherited the warm, caramel skin and mocha hair from their mother, but unfortunately, she had also inherited their father's powerful arms and held her little sister in a judo grip.

They swam past hallways and corridors, brilliant, cascading sets of obsolete stairs and around glass chandeliers until they reached the bedroom that all seven sisters shared. Several beds like shells were inlaid with heavenly soft, sea-cotton mattresses, duvets and luxuriously squishy pillows.

Ariel sighed, slipped out of her sister's grasp and sank into her own bed of maroon, covering herself with one of the duvets and sighing contentedly as the bed sank to accommodate her weight, creating a sort of cocoon around the mermaid.

"I... I'm sorry for being so harsh." The hard look in Attina's warm, brown eyes softened, and she swam beside her little sister's bed. "You know how I feel about father's temper... But I know you miss mother. I miss her also."

The older mermaid of seventeen left the room with a swish of her magnificent orange tail, and Ariel slowly drifted off to sleep.

 _"See, children? Look at the sky. See how it's filled with those glowing lights? When a human dies, its soul rises upward to the Heavenly Kingdom, and shines brightly with everyone else. Look how beautiful they are!"_

The seven sisters, the daughters of King Triton and Queen Aspera gasped as one at the sight of the lights in the sky, even though they had seen the stars a thousand times before.

 _They were floating on their backs in the safe lagoon they played in with their mother nearly every day, with nothing but the reflective inky water supporting them on the surface of the ocean._

 _"But mommy, if humans go to become one of the stars when they die, what happens to us?" Arista with milky skin, buttercream hair and a scarlet tail asked their mother._

 _"Well, child." Her mother sat up tentatively, and her offspring followed suit. "The ocean is not something you can control. Look at the water in our lagoon. And look at the vast ocean past our lagoon. Are they not one and the same? They may look different to you, young ones, but without the ocean, how would the lagoon have any water? The ocean is one body, one living being."_

 _"Absolute wool fluff."_

 _The sisters turned around to see their smiling father, and shrieked with joy as he repeatedly carried them and threw them gently into the water, laughing with them._

 _"Triton..." Aspera began, but her husband silenced her by holding her hand in his own._

 _"Darling, there's no such thing. The ocean is nothing but water, under our control." He chuckled and shook his head while his children clung to his arms and beard. "Alright, daughters, time to go home!'_

 _They groaned collectively, but nevertheless followed their father into the deep midnight of the sea, to the softly lit blue light that was the Sea Kingdom._

 _"Goodnight, girls." The Queen kissed each daughter in turn, and rose to leave the room._

 _"Mommy, what DOES happen to us after we die?" Ariel's soft voice sounded._

 _Aspera hesitated for a moment. "Daughters, the ocean is a very special being. Sometimes, if a mermaid is righteous and good her entire life, or dies a perfect, selfless death, the ocean chooses them to enter the Celestial Realm, a magical place under the sea with more colors like jewels than you can imagine illuminating the water where there is happiness but not sadness, life without death, forever and ever. The body will not be found, for their earthly self will dissolve into sea foam, and only their life blood will remain."_

 _The sisters were quiet._

 _"Will we go to the Celestial Realm?"_

 _"My dears, I don't know. Remember to live your lives selflessly - be kind, and put other merfolk before yourself."_

 _"We understand, mommy."_

The sun was high in the sky, just in time for Aquata's seventh birthday. The whole kingdom rose to the surface and celebrated at a different lagoon, a bigger lagoon, though not as hidden from ships with boulders and vines.

 _"Triton, sweetheart, humans might find us here. Why don't we go back to our old lagoon, the one that the children and I share? There's plenty of room for everyone-"_

 _"Nonsense." Her husband shook his head. "That old lagoon is far too small, and besides, the nearest island is hundreds of leagues away. Come, beloved! Enjoy our daughter's birthday. The royal chefs have prepared a sumptuous feast, and everyone's having a good time."_

 _Aspera swam uneasily back toward her people and soon enough, lost herself in the rich yet airy music of the pipes and flutes, the dancing of the merpeople and the delicious feast which tingled her every sense._

 _'Maybe I'm just paranoid.' She thought to herself as she looked around. The sky was a rich blue and the sun rendered the turquoise waves perfectly translucent, with light seemingly dancing off the smooth surface._

 _But deep down in her heart, she knew she was right, and the black sail of a pirate ship was spotted right away by the imperial guards._

 _"CITIZENS OF THE SEA KINGDOM! IN THE WATER NOW! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!"_

 _With that sentence, it was pandemonium._

 _Men threw their children and even wives into the deep, and for weeks later there were whispers that some infants didn't survive the impact._

 _In the mad scramble to leave the lagoon, merpeople knocked each other unconscious with powerful swipes of their tails, while for others limbs were broken and skulls were crushed, those immobilized left for dead floating on the surface of the ocean, screaming in agony as the sun blistered their scales and burned their sensitive skin, crying out for death to take them._

 _"Mother! Help me!" The ship was approaching quickly, and to her utter horror, Adella's magenta tail fins were caught between two boulders well above the water, the light of the sun glinting off her baby's iridescent, drying scales as she struggled this way and that._

 _Aspera wasted no time in swimming over to her daughter, and used her strong arms to pull herself up onto the rock._

 _"I'm sorry, mommy... The other mermaids and I just wanted to explore, and I got stuck..."_

 _"Shh... Child... It's ok, I'm here now." Aspera had arrived just in time to pull her daughter's tail from between the rocks, throwing her daughter off of the boulder toward the ocean, she herself slipping down back into the lagoon, devoid of strength to jump._

 _To her dismay, the hoots and hollers of the pirates of the ship grew louder and louder with every passing minute._

 _"Queen Aspera! Help us! Please!" Those immobilized, trapped in the lagoon, cried out with their remaining strength, and being the good person that she was, she used the little energy that she had to throw a single elderly merman back to his ocean home._

 _By now the shadow of the ship had fallen over her, but she was too weak to move._

 _In the distance, she heard the frenzied cries of her daughters to return to them, but in that moment, right before she met her fate, looked over and stared directly into Ariel's sapphire eyes._

 _"Daughters... Be kind, and put others before yourself."_

 _Queen Aspera's body was never found, and the last her daughters saw of her was bright red blood spilling over into the ocean, and fresh, white, sea foam dotting the surface of the lagoon._

 _"_ Ariel? Sorry I neglected to wake you sooner... It's time for the celebrations! You'll finally be allowed back up into the surface!"


	2. Chapter 2

Ariel awoke with a start, pushing back the duvets and turning to see her sister Alana, jet-black hair arranged in an elegant French twist threaded with pearls. Tiny flecks of amethyst sparkled on a delicate silver chain, entwined around the older mermaid's lilac tail, while small studs of polished rose quartz hung neatly in her perfect shell-shaped ears.

On her head sat an intricate tiara made of mother-of-pearl, and it occurred to her younger sister that her fifteenth birthday celebration was no ordinary birthday party - it was practically a royal event.

After that fateful day, her father had banned all citizens of the Sea Kingdom from going to the surface ever again, to keep the merpeople safe from more 'accidents'.

However, through the persistent pleadings of her sisters, sobbing that they would forget their mother completely if they were barred from her most loved place, Triton agreed to let his daughters back up into the open air after they turned fifteen, the accepted age of maturity in merfolk society.

"Ariel, dear sister, it's your fifteenth birthday! Father is... expecting us at the festivities an hour before the moon rises beyond the Sailor's rock, and you're not even dressed!" Alana clasped her sister's hand in her own and pulled her upright. "And after today... we can start visiting the lagoon as a family again."

Sea-chariots pulled by magnificent hippocamps thronged in front of the palace's ornate, golden front entrance, and soon enough, the grand foyer of King Triton was crowded with citizens from all across his kingdom from all walks of life, murmured excitedly, anticipating the arrival of the royal daughters - particularly the famed youngest child who looked almost exactly like her mother - whom Triton had locked away from the outside world after the Queen's demise.

"Citizens of the Sea Kingdom, men, women and children alike... I present to you... The youngest daughter of King Triton and the late Queen Aspera, Princess Ariel, first of her name!"

The royal musicians blew their ornate conch shells and pounded their traditional drums, while handmaidens wearing filmy rose-colored veils gently drew back a linen curtain to reveal a breathtakingly exquisite mermaid of fifteen.

Her spectacular flame-colored hair was painstakingly braided and twisted into an elaborate bun, complete with wavy tendrils framing her delicate face. Her vibrant virescent tail was enhanced by a simple gold choker inlaid with emeralds, and the ivory colour and creamy texture of her skin was enhanced with a silky jade tunic.

Seas of merpeople fell silent as soon as she crossed them on her way to the throne, having no choice but to succumb to the resplendent beauty that was the youngest royal mermaid.

Ariel glided past the crowds as she made her way to the royal daïs, painfully unaware of her citizens' stares. She was distracted - her heart was pounding in her throat, for she had not seen her father up since her mother's death.

Of course, there were the few royal banquets that they would attend and of course the fifteenth birthdays of Ariel's sisters... But the most she had seen of her father was from a distance, wrapped in the thick blanket of assorted crowds of merpeople and the din of voices which accompanied. She never got to see the creases around his eyes deepen with each smile, nor the thin streaks of silver appear in his mahogany hair.

She knelt before the throne, awaiting Triton's deep, rich, familiar voice and the taps of his trident that were ever-present during the royal ceremonies of her past, such as the fifteenth birthdays of her sisters.

"Citizens! A daughter of the sea reaches the age of maturity today, and by the power vested in me, I proclaim her eligible for the throne. Ariel, child, rise. Do you accept this new standing?"

"I, Princess Ariel born of King Triton and the late Queen Aspera solemnly accept this responsibility, my king, with the ever-present consideration of the sea and all its present citizens." Ariel rose and recited the phrase she had committed to memory with every sister's coming-of-age celebration.

"A daughter of the sea reaches the age of maturity today, and by the power vested in me, I assign her the vast district of Rhodon to matron, where she will serve the people as a leader. Does she accept this new standing?"

"I, Princess Ariel born of King Triton and the late Queen Aspera solemnly accept this responsibility, my king, with the ever-present consideration of the sea and all its present citizens."

"A daughter of the sea reaches the age of maturity today, and by the power vested in me, I hereby allow her to travel to the surface region with air separate from the water, where she must not travel past our domains onto human territory of the shores. Does she accept this new standing?"

Ariel thought her heart might burst.

"YES! FATHER! YES! I DO ACCEPT! OH, THANK YOU! MOTHER WOULD BE SO PLEASED! YES YES YES! I ACCEPT!"

She wrapped her arms around her father impulsively, but the currents of water that burst from her tail were so vigorous that the majestic statue behind the throne of the Sea Kingdom's royal insignia  
slowly  
split  
in  
two.

CRASH!

Hearing the noise, Ariel hastily unhooked herself from her father and gasped at the half of the statue on the floor, completely oblivious to the fact that that everyone was watching her, gaping.

"Ariel!"

In the complete silence, the harsh tone and sour pitch of Attina's voice pierced her immense happiness.

"Whoops... Um... I'm sorry, father... I'll... "

With her cheeks burning, she swam out of the foyer as fast as her tail could take her.

 _"Mother!" Attina screamed, small tears coursing down her face. "Where is my mother? I want my_ _mother!"_

 _Softhearted Arista was deep beneath the ocean, sobbing as her tears joined the current, while the usually sarcastic Andrina with short, choppy, sandy hair and clear grey eyes was unusually pale and tearlessly weeping, in loud, hoarse gasps._

 _Alana's lovely violet eyes had rolled back in her head as she sank to join her younger sister at the seabed, and twins Aquata and Adella were wailing so loudly with the rawest form of utter despair that they started to cry tears of blood._

 _But little Ariel with auburn hair and innocent, azure eyes, stared into the sea foam, knowing that her mother was watching her from afar..._

 _Or below the sea, where colors illuminate the water like jewels and there is life but not death, happiness but not sadness, forever and ever._


End file.
